8 Participatory Propaganda: The Engagement of Audiences in the Spread of Persuasive Communications

Rapidly evolving information communications technologies (ICTs) and increased connectivity to online sources have drastically altered the ways individuals engage in the public information domain and, in turn, become influenced by it.As citizens become increasingly plugged-in, a savvy propagandist can acquire enhanced means of swaying opinions around the world by combining tech-enabled formats of persuasive content, automated dissemination and audience engagement in content propagation.In addition, by obfuscating the origins of propagandistic content through audience participation via the internet and social networks, the propagandist can also increase its receptivity and influence effects.For example, people tend to find recommendations from their personal social network more credible than others (Nielson, 2015).Such subtle mass persuasion, through and by means of personal networks, is problematic in liberal democracies founded on the premise that freedom of choice by citizens on political matters is expected to inform public decision-making and power structures (Lippman, 1922;Irwin, 1919;Marlin, 2011).This paper is broken into three sections.In the first, a multidisciplinary literature review aggregates individual studies published recently that analyze the known digital, behavioral and psychological tactics available to propagandists aiming to engage target audiences online.Extensive research conducted by scholars over recent years on new ICT tools, social networks, influence tactics and their manifested effects on consumers of online information, including their political choices, has been instrumental in acquiring the first appreciation for the scale, complexity and social repercussions of modern persuasive communications -what we called "participatory propaganda."In the second section, the paper draws on original research conducted during the 2016 US presidential elections to analyze how Trump supporters applied these tactics to engage Facebook followers in the promotion of persuasive content, thus encouraging them to become propagandists themselves.In the conclusion, the research results are placed into the broad context of the emerging information environment describing possible repercussions for citizens' political engagement and arguing that further modelling of digital propaganda is required to better understand the risks to liberal democracy associated with using such techniques.